


Some Assistance Required

by benduo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin finally answers his grandson's calls, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, Ben probably broke his back if we're being honest, F/M, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Missing Scene, Reylo - Freeform, Reylo is canon, Skywalker Family Feels, Solo family feels, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, and Rey is occupied at the moment, descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benduo/pseuds/benduo
Summary: In which Ben Solo finds himself at the bottom of a pit, broken and alone, nearly accepting his fate as the last Skywalker. But his family is not done with him yet.I wrote this on Christmas Eve after my second viewing of TRoS. I couldn't stop thinking about how one additional scene would have helped me feel less heartbroken. And so this monstrosity was born.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Some Assistance Required

He has been lying in the pit for what seems like ages. And maybe it has been. Maybe he’s dying, maybe this is the end. If he has to pay for his sins, for generations of the mighty Skywalker bloodline tormenting the galaxy with unnecessary pain, then Ben must die in this pit. He does not want to give up, but maybe he should. After all, it is time to let the past die.

The Force seems so far away. So distant. Ben never felt so cut off from the Force, not even since the moment he was a clump of cells, a tiny child in his mother’s womb who had raw power beyond understanding. Now the Force is a fuzzy memory in the back of his skull, fleeting one moment, aching the next. Palpatine was telling the truth; sucking the life out of Ben and Rey to fuel his own was no joke. He could die here. He should die here. 

His ankle is definitely snapped through and through. Ben knows before he attempts to put pressure on it. The bone split upon contact with the stone ground, along with many other body parts, and it is only by the Force’s will that the last Skywalker survived his fall.

The pit is deep. Ben can barely see the flickering lightning at the top, illuminating the sky with electric currents. Everything is quiet, except for the cacophonous ringing in his ears; Ben is positive that one of his eardrums burst. Crimson blood stains his hair, gathering at the nape of his neck in a thick, warm pool. Ben can feel his breathing slow. His heart skipped a beat, then two. 

Rey is up there, alone. Palpatine’s plan has either succeded or Rey managed to rise above all the pain and the appealing lure of her lineage -- a feat he hadn’t been able to accomplish until a few hours ago. Ben hopes it is the latter, but the Force is so far removed from him that he can’t be sure. He’s not certain he’ll ever find out.

Is this what it feels like to die?

It hurts more than Ben imagined.

He presumed that death would meet him on the battlefield, if ever. When he was young, Ben wanted to die amongst the stars, on the Falcon, on a swashbuckling adventure with his father. Obviously plans changed, but now he feels a deep longing to see the stars once more before he departs from this life. Kylo Ren’s life, and Ben Solo’s. What is left for him on land, anyway? His family is in the heavens. He should go home, like his father told him to.

“A Jedi does not give up.”

Ben gently cranes his head, not wanting to snap the fragile bone attaching his skull to his body. A blue light illuminates the rocky surface, causing the young man to blink back nausea. He’s concussed, without a doubt, but Ben hadn’t thought he reached hallucination yet.

Apparently, he’s wrong.

Towering above him is a young, sad man, bathed in blue and wearing robes too big for his body. The face is familiar, but Ben can’t decide why or where he’d seen it before. The voice is straight out of his dreams.

“What are you staring at?” The ghost cocks an eyebrow, his voice somberly hopeful. The long hair around his face curls at its ends, framing a war-beaten countenance. Ben feels like he’s looking into a mirror. A very twisted, very morbid mirror. Is this what he becomes?

Ben barely coughs out the word. “You.”

“Yeah, me. Surprised?” The ghost crouches, his knees bending like a real person’s might, the fabric clumping in all the right spots.

Ben Solo’s voice is all agony when he gathers the strength to speak again, an awkward minute later. “Why didn’t you come? Before, when I was calling out to you? I waited so… long.”

The thinly cloaked sadness is entirely unveiled as Anakin says, “I was here the whole time. The call to the light. You weren’t alone, you just didn’t want to open your eyes.”

There’s a smile on his grandfather’s face, but Ben’s falls, and it keeps falling until it hits the deepest crevice of this idiotically cavernous pit, shattered and dead. “No. No, I felt a pull to the darkness, too. That came from you.”

“It came from Vader’s helmet,” says Anakin, now lying on the stone, parallel to his grandson. They’re reflections of each other; not exact copies, but reversed. Their journeys were never meant to intertwine. “Palpatine used it as a vessel to seduce you. He’s clever that way, using our idols to turn our hearts.” A thick pause fills the stagnant air, and Ben’s ears play tricks on him as a low, phantom breathing appears. “I was never… I was trying to bring you back to the light, Ben.”

“But I heard your voice,” the stubborn boy counters like his mother, his eyes searching the sky above them for an astronomical solution.

Shaking his head, Anakin spoke, tone laced with wisdom gained the hard way. “You heard Vader’s voice. Not mine.”

“You’re the same person.”

“Just as you are Kylo Ren?”

Silence fills the chasm, uncomfortable and stiff, just like the clothes on Ben’s body. Kylo Ren’s clothes. Not Ben Solo’s. Before, when he tossed Kylo Ren’s unstable lightsaber out into the ocean, never wanting to see it again, Ben also stripped himself of as much clothing as possible. Wearing anything tailored for the raging monster was not acceptable. Perhaps they are different, Ben and Kylo. However, it is foolish to claim that one can exist without the other, that Ben Solo is able to be seperated from Kylo Ren with the snap of two fingers or the will of a determined mind. Ben needs Kylo and Kylo needs Ben. The young Solo knew this truth in his very bones. But if they can learn to exist without trampling one another down, without resorting to emotional repression, could true balance be achieved? Could darkness and light be refined to make something whole and complete? If Ben represses Kylo Ren, he is as extreme as the Jedi were. He loses his passion, his raging love, and becomes vain and self-righteous. Yet, if Kylo cuts down Ben Solo, he is evil and wrong, a man without a conscience. There must be a balance. He must find the balance. 

“I would agree with Vader on one point, though.” Anakin’s chest rises and falls, as though his form was corporeal and could actually inhale. There’s a short pause, one Ben is certain his grandfather added for dramatic flair. It worked. All the attention Ben could muster while bleeding from at least twelve places is placed on the face of his dead ancestor, waiting for the words that would tumble out of his mouth next, hoping they would shake his world to the core.

“You must finish what I started, Ben.” The barely tangible form of Anakin Skywalker gracefully lifts himself up, rising far too easily to be alive. “I didn’t kill Palpatine, or save the woman I loved from dying. But you still can.”

A hand is extended down while Ben searches the tired face of his mother’s father for doubt. Everyone doubted Ben Solo. Luke Skywalker himself doubted Ben. Why should this man, whom he never met, be any different?

“I have faith in you because I was you, Ben,” he says, throwing every ounce of post-death emotion into the sentence. “My son saved me. It’s time for you to save yourself, and the girl.” 

“I’m too weak,” Ben argues, barely getting oxygen to his brain. “I’m not ready.” His vision blurs, the pain sparking like a bad motivator.

Another light source shines on Ben’s left, and before the young Solo can pivot his body, the voice carries straight to his ears. “No one ever is,” his Uncle Luke says, staring straight through to Ben’s very soul. “But this is your fight.”

At another time, if Kylo Ren was not dead, if Ben Solo hadn’t made the decision to save his own soul, Luke’s stance above Ben, vulnerable and weak on the floor, would be met with a biting retort, followed by a physical attack. The weight of their respective positions was not lost on the boy. But Ben Solo chose to let go of the hate and the suffering.  
Anakin’s hand is still suspended in the air, tempting him with an offer that Ben desperately wants to accept, but finds himself physically unable to. If he stays here to die, Palpatine wins, and Rey becomes a vessel that will bring generations of pain and misery to the galaxy. She will be lost. He never wanted that, not even when he found her in the forest on Takodana. Not from the moment he first saw her, all rage and fear and naivety.

This is his purpose, isn’t it? Decades of heartbreak led to this moment, and for what? So that he can lie here and wallow in grief and pain while a crusty Sith Lord reigns, terrorizing the galaxy his family fought so hard to protect? As Ben stares at his grandfather’s hand, he swallows hard. Where there was conflict, there is now resolve. Where there was weakness, strength.

“I know what I have to do,” Ben says, his voice firm in the raging storm, “but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” He’s surprised that the Force has kept him alive this long. He should have been dead as soon as his body hit the ground. “Will you help me?”

Broken eyes of a frightened boy stare up at the two Skywalkers above him, seeking guidance on a path the memory of his father could not provide. Han Solo meant the world to Ben, but the Force was an anomaly that his father did not try to understand, and maybe never could. Not in the way that Ben can. Not in the way that Leia could, and certainly not like Luke or Anakin did. This fight is bigger than the fallen prince of Alderaan, but if he can gather some assistance... 

“Gladly.” Anakin grins from ear to ear, and the rare sight makes Uncle Luke smile, too.

Ben’s heavy hand thumps against his grandfather’s, the clap echoing through the very core of Exogol. The grunt that follows is quieter, and the act of pulling all six feet and two inches of Ben Solo to his feet seems to be as easy as lifting a feather for Anakin. When he’s up, the weight buckles beneath his legs, pushing him down, and Ben almost goes crashing back to the cold stones. But there’s an arm to catch him when he slips, this one far softer and kinder than the two men could have conjured. Focused eyes follow the hand, and Ben feels his face fill with tears when his mother stares back at him. She’s older than he remembered. Her hair has gone grey, though the glowing blue light is forgiving to her skin. She’s at peace, but still sad. She is a lot like grandfather that way, Ben notices with a twinge of guilt.

“Go, Ben. Save what you love.” Her voice carries through the night like an Alderaanian lullaby. “You’re stronger than you know.”

He wants to run into her arms, wants to hug her until he cries himself to sleep. She knows this. Her hands come to wrap around his own, enclosing them atop Anakin’s arm. The arm Ben was still clinging onto. The arm that lifted him up.

“We can talk later. Right now, you have to fulfill your destiny.”

The tears are spilling out, no longer held back by a shred of ill-placed pride. He knows she’s right; she always is.

“Climb, Ben,” a new voice says, the face appearing behind Anakin’s shoulder. “Rise.” It’s an old man, one Ben recognized from pictures and descriptions. His father would tell him bedtime stories of a crazy old wizard who sacrificed himself so that three lost kids could save the galaxy. The story always ended the same way. Han reminded Ben that the wizard was his namesake, and that one day, when he’s older, Ben could honor that legacy. 

Walking is near impossible on his own, but he has help. Anakin gathers most of the weight, slinging Ben’s arm over his shoulder, and the others close their eyes — their dead eyes — and reach their hands towards him. Ben feels the energy flowing through him, feels the Force return, stronger than ever before. When the wall is in front of him, Ben’s bloodied hand grasps a rock, his curls swaying as he throws a glance over his shoulder.

His mother is still there, radiant and smiling. Luke is wearing an odd expression that Ben recalls must be happiness. Kenobi looks so proud.

And Anakin is still at his side, a hand around his waist, supporting what Ben could not.

“You got this, kid.”

Then he’s being hoisted up the pit, climbing as quickly as he can manage, but allowing his family to do the rest of the work. He’s not alone. They believe in him. He’s not alone, and neither is Rey.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing fic for years but never posted any of it. I hope someone enjoyed this, and please, leave a comment if you want to! The end of this fic doesn't state that Ben lives, but when I wrote it, that's what I had in mind :)


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